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Tuesday, 9 October 2012

The 2nd Law is the sixth studio album by English alternative rock band Muse, which was released throughout most of the world on 28 September 2012, and in North America on 2 October 2012.

"We are defined by the fact that we
can't be defined by anybody," says Matt Bellamy, the
singer-guitarist-pianist of Muse, as he runs down the range and nerve of
the British trio's new album, The 2nd Law, out in October. "There are electro-pop sounds and songs that are obviously classic rock,"
Bellamy notes, referring to the machine-funk nightmares "Madness" and
"Panic Station" and, in the latter category, "Big Freeze" and his
lead-guitar blowup in "Animals."

"Then there are the orchestral
things," he adds over lunch in New York: the strings-choir-and-metal
"Survival," already a hit as an official Olympic theme song, and the
symphonic chaos of the two-part title suite. The 2nd Law would sound
like "three different bands," Bellamy contends, "if it wasn't for my
voice."

Bellamy, bassist Chris Wolstenholme and drummer
Dominic Howard recorded most of the follow-up to their 2009 U.S.
breakthrough, The Resistance, in Londonlast year,
then did overdubs in L.A. with David Campbell, whose arranging and
conducting credits include albums by Metallica and his son Beck. "He
understood that film-music thing we were looking for," Bellamy says.
"And he found a lot of amazing people," including a trumpeter who played
on Stevie Wonder's "Superstition."

But it was in London, as Muse started work on The 2nd Law last summer, where Bellamy found his title and main theme. He was watching a panel of economists
on the BBC when someone on the show referred to the second law of
thermo­dynamics. "He said, 'The laws of physics say that an economy
based on endless growth is unsustainable,'" Bellamy says. "Everyone is
obsessed with constant, unchecked growth, and no one is pointing out
that we might be maxing out.

"'Survival' tunes into the insanity of that,"
Bellamy adds. Another song, the piano-based ballad "Explorers," "looks
at the other side of the coin, this adventurous spirit we've created
that is now in question, because the planet is saying, 'I'm only so big
and have this much.'"

There are breaks in the apocalypse. "Follow Me" is a dreamy plea with an unusual pulse: the in-utero heartbeat of Bellamy's son with fiancee Kate Hudson,
recorded on an iPhone, the father says, "just before she pushed him
out." And "Save Me," one of two songs written and sung by Wolstenholme,
suggests the Beach Boys circa Pet Sounds. "It's a new sound for us," Bellamy says with a smile. "It makes for a nice change."